60 



THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



which was on the site of the modern Cattle Fair hotel. The 

 custom at the cattle-show dinners of early date, was to pro- 

 vide a set of regular toasts or sentiments, and persons 

 called upon responded, each with his own sentiment, and 

 not with a speech. Among the volunteer or responsive 

 toasts on this first occasion were the following: 



The ox the richest domestic gift of nature to the citizen 

 and the farmer. 



The fine-wooled and coarse-wooled sheep Heaven's next 

 best gift ; may we remember their merits, when the glass 

 is below the cipher, and not lay on their backs the folly of 

 our own speculations. 



The best blessings to any people, a learned and pious 

 clergy ; may they practice what they preach and learn to 

 differ as though they differed not. 



A speedy end to the farmer's three banes, mortgages, 

 dram-shops and a violent thirst for politics of any sort. 



The editor of a Boston newspaper of the day said of the 

 event " It was pleasant to witness on this occasion the 

 total absence of party feelings and political prejudices. The 

 lion and the lamb lay down together. Public utility was 

 the order, and rural felicity, the sentiment, of the day." 

 The report read by Mr. Lowell gives some hint of the an- 

 tecedent considerations governing the action of the trustees. 

 It says : 



Those opposed to the plan of a cattle show may ask why 

 the society should waste its funds in a scheme, the ten- 

 dency of which may seem to them to be only to multiply 

 the days of festivity and idleness, already too frequent, 

 and to endanger the morals of the citizens by collecting 

 them together in a situation, and under temptations, unfa- 

 vorable to correctness and sobriety. We are not unaware 

 that such collections of people may be subject to some evil. 

 But when we recollect upon how many less interesting 

 occasions, and among those some of questionable utility, 

 the people are called together, in which the principal effect 

 upon some would seem % to be to sharpen still more the as- 

 perity of party feelings, and to widen still further the 

 breaches in our community, it would appear to be a sufficient 

 apology to say, let us unite in one object in which division 

 and irritable feelings can find no room for exercise, in an 



